


Give up control

by ShadowAtlas



Category: Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: Conforting Dylan, Gen, Hypnosis, Nightmares, Roommates, Waffles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowAtlas/pseuds/ShadowAtlas
Summary: Daniel is forced to share his room with Dylan, who ends up figuring out something that the illusionnist would have prefered keeping secret… Dylan will help him thanks to one of his hidden talents…





	

**Author's Note:**

> Now You See Me's characters and story don't belong to me... But this fiction's story and ideas do !
> 
> See you at the end, good reading !  
> Shadow

When the Four Horsemen’s van finally parks in front of the hotel, around midnight and halfway through Las Vegas, Merritt extricates himself from the vehicle sighing “Finally !” before stretching.  
Dylan also gets out and asks aloud to everyone:  
\- Well, since we have all snacked sandwiches on the way, nobody objects to the fact that we go to bed directly ?  
Four impatient nods answer him.  
\- Perfect, take care of the baggage, I’m going to book the rooms.  
  
It has been two months since their final act on the Thames at New Year Eve, during which the Four Horsemen and their mentor made sure to lay low, in order to escape the FBI. But few days ago, the Eye finally entrusted a new mission to them. So they prepared a new show, which will take place in the first city that saw them perform on stage: Las Vegas.  
That’s why they drove all day long, Dylan Shrike behind the wheel of their little family van. Merritt McKinney sometimes acted as the copilot, map on his knees, sometimes dozed off, his hat on his face. On the back seats, Jack Wilder and Lula May spent the trip chatting excitedly and showing each other their various tricks.  
  
Meanwhile, J. Daniel Atlas spent the long hours of their travel shuffling his deck of cards by twenty different ways, looking absentmindedly through the window, his control freak’s mind replaying endlessly the numerous parts of the plan and the show, refusing to miss the slightest detail.  
When he gets out of the car to help the others carrying the bags, Daniel lets out a huge yawn, and realizes that the trip really worn him out him as well. He sighs briefly, hoping he will be able to escape an umpteenth sleepless night…  
  
Once the baggage are out of the car, the four magicians join Dylan in the hotel’s lobby.  
\- Here are the magnetic cards which open your rooms, he announces while distributing them. Lula in the 403, Jack with Merritt in the 405, and Atlas with me in the 404, he finishes, keeping the card.  
  
Daniel’s tired brain takes a few seconds to register the information.  
\- Wait, what ? Why do I… Hum, why don’t we all sleep together, all the boys I mean ?  
\- Because they don’t have four-bed rooms left, Dylan quietly answers, only two-bed.  
\- And… why do _I_ sleep with you exactly ?  
Dylan holds back a sigh at the young man’s stubbornness.  
\- Because Merritt snores like a chainsaw…  
\- And I’m very proud of it, the latter smiles smugly.  
\- … And Jack is the only one who is enough of a heavy sleeper to bear with it.  
  
Daniel opens his mouth to protest, but the older doesn’t let him time to do so.  
\- I remind you that the last time you all three slept in the same room, you were in a nasty mood all day because you didn’t sleep through the whole night ! So I decided that this time, you’ll sleep in my room ! he adds, putting an arm around his shoulders.  
  
The young magician seeks for a comeback, an argument, anything which would allow him to have the last word and save face.  
\- Hum, in that case it’s not _your_ room ! Give me that !  
Daniel tries to grab the magnetic card, but Dylan raises his arm high enough to prevent him from taking it, before making it disappear by a flick of his wrist. The younger pouts, almost sulking, when he notices Dylan staring at him with a fond and amused smile. He blushes a little and steps aside quickly.  
\- I’m… I’m gonna help Merritt to uh… carry the bags, he stutters, moving away.  
  
  
As soon as they arrive at the fourth floor, Jack and Lula race to reach the rooms. Dylan follows them not far behind (however without running, he has a reputation to preserve), while Merritt and Daniel pull the bags further behind. The latter seems nervous and nibbles his lower lip.  
The mentalist observes him for a moment before asking quietly:  
\- Will be okay Atlas ?  
Daniel hesitates a bit before answering in a low voice:  
\- I can’t sleep with him Merritt…  
\- No one expects you to go this far, Danny-boy… the older teases him with a charming smile.  
  
Danny punches him in the arm.  
\- Idiot ! You know damn well what I’m talking about ! I don’t want him to see _that_ …  
Merritt becomes serious again and nods, well aware of the young man’s problem, before asking carefully:  
\- I could still hypnotise you to…  
\- No way ! the illusionist answers very quickly.  
\- Daniel… Merritt insists, looking at him a bit worriedly.  
\- I know it’s really efficient in… that type of case, but hypnosis and me don’t see eye to eye, okay !  
The mentalist raises his hands up in surrender.  
\- It’s up to you, Danny-boy.  
The young magician passes a hand through his hair to try and calm his nerves.  
\- Never mind, I will… I will find something… Don’t worry about me…  
  
At this moment, Jack and Lula finish their race at the end of the corridor.  
\- Haha I win ! Jack exclaims. Merritt hurry up, it’s our room !  
The hypnotist briefly squeezes Daniel’s shoulder with a sympathetic smile, and he joins the youngest Horseman.  
\- You’re coming Atlas ? Dylan calls him, in front of their room’s door too.  
Danny lets out a small sigh before joining the ex-FBI agent who waits him with a questioning smile, but the illusionist enters the room without a word.  
  
  
Dylan decides to put the strange behaviour of Daniel – let’s say, stranger than usual – on the count of the long trip-induced tiredness. After dropping their bags in the room, they strip to keep only a tee-shirt and their boxer, and they lie down in their respective bed.  
Dylan wraps in the covers with a sigh of wellbeing. He isn’t used to drive that long and his back reminds him with insistence. Next to him, he hears Daniel stir and turn relentlessly in his bed, which doesn’t surprise him from the control freak hyperactive magician. That doesn’t prevent the fifth Horseman to fall asleep in a few seconds…  
  
… Only to wake up suddenly a couple of hours later, all senses on alert, when he hears some unusual noises in the bedroom. His sleepy brain takes several seconds to figure out that theses noises come from the bed next to him, in other words from Danny.  
He straightens on his mattress to look at his roommate. The young magician mumbles incoherent words and squirms in his sleep. He is pale, his forehead covered by sweat. His hands hook for dear life on the blanket in which his legs are entangled. A tear escapes his closed eyelids. He is suffering from a nightmare which seems more than scary.  
  
Dylan gets up quietly and crouches next to Daniel’s bed. He sweeps away the strands stuck to his forehead, and runs his hand through his hair, which grew up since their last show on the Thames. Then he calls him whispering.  
\- Daniel, you hear me ? Wake up Daniel… Danny…  
  
A second later, the young man wakes up yelling and bolts upright on his bed. His breathing is hoarse and messy, he is shaking like a leaf, and tears are now running freely on his cheeks.  
Dylan keeps calling him softly, and Danny takes several minutes to regain a foothold in reality. When he finally emerges, he notices Dylan’s presence with a jump. He wipes shamefully his cheeks before lowering his eyes.  
  
\- S-sorry … he stammers.  
\- Why do you apologize ? Dylan wonders, before sitting on the edge of the bed and putting a hand on his shoulder. You’re better ?  
\- Yes… I-I didn’t want you to see me like this… Danny mumbles, head still hanging low.  
\- Don’t talk nonsense, it happens to everybody to have nightmares. There is nothing for you to be ashamed of.  
\- …  
\- Do you have them often ?  
The illusionist looks at him a split second before quickly averting his eyes.  
\- No…  
The ex-FBI agent frowns severely, detecting the lie right away.  
\- Daniel…  
  
Danny sighs, understanding he won’t escape his mentor’s interrogatory. He surrounds his knees with his arms and puts his chin on them before answering.  
\- Nearly each night… Most of the time it’s soft enough and I manage to go back to sleep … But sometimes it’s too violent, I wake up yelling like now, and I’m good for an all-nighter…  
Dylan gradually widened his eyes during the young man’s story.  
\- Wow… You want to talk about it ?  
The answer is instantaneous and categorical.  
\- I prefer not.  
\- Okay, okay…  
  
The fifth Horseman remains thoughtful a while, then he realizes something:  
\- That’s why Merritt spoke about hypnotising you earlier ?  
\- Yes it… Wait, you heard us ? the younger wonders.  
\- No, I read Merritt’s lips.  
Daniel stares at him eyes wide open.  
\- … You’re serious ??  
Dylan gives him a mysterious smile, which Danny answers by laughing.  
  
The former agent watches his young friend relaxing a bit, and tells himself he better thinks wisely the next words he will utter, if he doesn’t want him to dig his heels in completely… He takes a large intake of breath and asks carefully:  
\- What if _I_ hypnotise you ?  
Daniel immediately stops laughing, tenses and turns back to him.  
\- What ?!  
\- I know you have a real aversion towards hypnosis, Dylan continues calmly. But I could hypnotise you just enough to make you relax, just so you can sleep tonight…  
  
Under normal circumstances, Daniel rejects hypnosis altogether. The idea of losing control over his environment and over himself, to end up at the mercy of someone else’s desires… This feeling of sinking, not being master of himself anymore, and not being able to do anything to prevent it… He hates that.  
However, this time, he finds himself pondering seriously at the proposal. The last all-nighters he has undergone are starting to plague him, he feels truly exhausted, and the idea of a real night of sleep is more tempting than ever.  
He is used to give up some control with Dylan, since he is technically their leader. And well, he trusts him, right ? Then he can yield a bit more control… Just this time…  
  
\- I won’t make you do anything weird, Dylan continues, I won’t dig in your head. I will just help you relax and prevent you from having nightmare.  
The young magician still looks at him with distrust.  
\- You won’t look into my memories, you won’t seek to know what’s in my nightmares ?  
\- Promise.  
The conviction in his voice ends up working.  
\- Okay, Danny capitulates with a small voice.  
Dylan gives him a big smile, which he can’t help answering.  
  
The two magicians sit cross-leg on Daniel’s bed, in front of each other. Dylan observes him and notices that his left knee is bouncing nervously. He puts his hand on it to immobilize it, then he looks the young man in the eyes.  
\- Before we begin, I would like you to breathe deeply… One more time… One more…  
Danny goes along the game, and with each intake of breath he feels his shoulders slackening a little, his muscles relaxing a bit more.  
\- Very good. Now look into my eyes.  
The young man frowns, realizing he closed his eyes without noticing. He opens them, and is immediately caught by Dylan’s brown iris. Then he hears his low and deep voice.  
  
\- I want you to focus on my voice, on the words I say, the way I say them. You hear nothing other than my voice, nothing else matters… Good, now focus on my eyes, their colour, their form. You see nothing other than my eyes, you hear nothing other than my voice…  
The rest of his words loses itself in Danny’s foggy brain. He tried to resist the hypnosis at first, reflexively, but the tiredness quickly forced him to give up. He tries one last time to tear away from the contemplation of this brown eyes, when Dylan pronounces:  
\- Sleep.  
  
Dylan catches the younger’s head when he falls forward, eyes closed and breathing slow and deep. He smiles, then whispers at his ear:  
\- When I snap my fingers, you will fall deeply asleep, and you won’t wake up until ten o’clock. You won’t have any nightmare, no bad dream, just sleep peacefully.  
He is about to snap his fingers, but changes his mind at the last moment and adds:  
\- When you will be in the van tomorrow, I will snap my fingers and you will fall asleep again, until we reach Las Vegas.  
Dylan snaps his fingers, and lies down the young sleeping illusionist who already starts to snore lightly. Dylan smiles fondly before letting out an enormous yawn. It is more than bed-time for him too.  
  
  
The next morning, Daniel Atlas wakes up slowly, a bit groggy. He is lying on the stomach, arms tight around the pillow on which he drooled in his sleep. He wipes his cheek, a bit puzzled: he only drools when he sleeps very deeply and peacefully, which didn’t happen since he was twelve years old…  
Still half asleep, he fumbles on the nightstand to find his phone, turns on the screen and reads the hour, widening his eyes a little: ten o’clock already ! He stands up on his elbow to find that Dylan already left the room. Then he notices on the nightstand a note whose writing he recognizes: _Meet us downstairs for breakfast !_  
  
Danny smiles and gets up, quickly puts on trousers and leaves the room.  
Arriving at the hotel’s self, he looks for the Horsemen and finds them seated next to the buffet. At the end of the table, Merritt is buttering a croissant. At his left, Jack and Lula share a bowl of cereals. In front of them, Dylan is drinking a large cup of coffee. Next to him, in front of the fifth empty chair, a plate is overflowing from waffles covered with maple syrup.  
The sight of his favourite breakfast is mouth-watering, and Daniel hurries to join them. Dylan watches him fondly: he looks like a young boy who just woke up, with his tousled hair.  
  
The illusionist sits and throws a “Good morning” to everyone. Lula laughs and points out he has the pillow’s mark of his left cheek. He blushes and frenetically rubs his cheek to make it disappear.  
Dylan rolls his eyes, grabs his left wrist and shoves a fork in his hand.  
\- Eat, he orders in a half-authoritarian, half-amused voice.  
For once, the younger doesn’t argue with his roommate, and wades into his waffles with appetite.  
Meanwhile, Merritt didn’t take his eyes off them since Danny came in the room, and observes them closely while sipping his coffee.  
  
  
Half an hour later, breakfasts are eaten, bags stowed in the truck, and the five Horsemen are sitting in the van and ready to go.  
\- Before we leave, Merritt suddenly announces with a serious tone, I have question of utmost importance to ask.  
Dylan, who didn’t miss the insistent gazes of the hypnotist, feels trouble coming, but answers anyway:  
\- Go ahead.  
  
Merritt turns around, folds his arms on the seat’s backrest, puts his chin on it, and stares at Daniel before asking, a smirk on his lips:  
\- What exactly did happen between you two last night ?  
The young magician has a blank. Then he thinks about that night’s events: he had a nightmare and cried in front of Dylan, who reassured him, then he let himself be hypnotised in no time without resisting. So he blushes.  
Lula starts bouncing on her seat, excited:  
\- You did… No don’t tell me you did… Aaw that’s adorable !!  
Jack looks successively at his idol and the fifth Horseman, slightly confused about the topic.  
\- You get fun at night between the two of you without inviting me ? That’s not fair guys !  
  
Danny blushes even more, figuring out the misunderstanding he stuck himself into.  
\- N-nonsense ! We didn’t do anything ! And you, stop with your dubious innuendo ! he adds while glaring at Merritt.  
\- Come on, be honest Danny-boy, the mentalist smiles, since this morning I can feel a different aura between you two, more relaxed. It’s obvious that _something_ happened…  
  
Dylan dropped his head on the wheel as soon as Merritt asked his question. He knows full well that they will never manage to leave if he doesn’t stop the argument now, and the better way to do so… He turns around to face the young man, red as a beetroot.  
\- Daniel.  
The younger looks at him, ready to undergo another dubious comment.  
\- What ?!  
Dylan snaps his fingers right in front of his nose. The effect is instantaneous: Daniel freezes, then his eyelids close slowly and he sags on his seat, fast asleep. The Horsemen’s mentor turns towards Merritt who is agape, just like Jack and Lula.  
\- Here, that is what happened last night.  
Then he sits back in front of the wheel and starts the van.  
  
The mentalist stares at Dylan, then Danny, then Dylan again with a big admirer smile.  
\- You _absolutely_ have to explain me how you did that.  
\- We’ll see, Dylan answers with a sly smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Dylan's protective side is truly adorable x)  
> Feel free to leave a comment to tell me what you've thought of it !
> 
> Shadow


End file.
